FIRST ROUND OF HAITI'S PARTIAL SENATE ELECTIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PORT AU PRINCE 000419

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR WHA/EX, WHA/CAR, S/CRS, DS/IP/WHA, AND INR/IAA
WHA/EX PLEASE PASS TO USOAS, USAID/LAC
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E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/20/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM ASEC HA
SUBJECT: FIRST ROUND OF HAITI'S PARTIAL SENATE ELECTIONS
LARGELY CALM

REF: PORT AU PRINCE 411

Classified By: Amb. Janet A. Sanderson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Voting in the first round of partial Senate elections
(reftel) took place April 19 in Haiti's ten departments with
only one major incident. The Embassy's 29 observers saw that
voting materials had generally been delivered to polling
stations on time, trained poll workers effectively oversaw
the voting process, and voters were generally not subject to
threats or intimidation. Embassy believes that low voter
interest in a mid-term election, confusion over voting sites,
and a controversial decision to strictly limit vehicular
traffic on election day led to the apparently low voter
turnout, which MINUSTAH estimated at 10-20 percent. OAS
sources privately place the figure at 5-7 percent. We expect
results to trickle in gradually the week of April 20.


2. (C) The one significant incident of violence occurred in
the Center department. The Provisional Electoral Council
(CEP) suspended voting in the entire Center department after
an electoral worker was shot in Mirebalais and unknown
perpetrators stole ballot boxes in some voting centers.
Before noon on election day, MINUSTAH had dispatched fifteen
Formed Police Unit members and thirty Bolivian troops to
Mirebalais to help the Haitian National Police (HNP) and
UNPOL security personnel maintain order. SRSG Hedi Annabi
privately criticized the CEP decision to suspend voting in
the Central Plateau, saying that the small percentage (11
percent) of polling stations affected did not justify
canceling the election in the entire department. The CEP
later announced that the new date for elections in the Center
would be determined in consultation with Haitian and UN
security forces. Annabi noted that a re-run of elections in
the Center would be easier to secure, since MINUSTAH and the
Haitian National Police could focus their resources on a
single department. In a conversation with Ambassador shortly
after the announcement, CEP President Frantz-Gerard Verret
said that Ministry of Interior, MINUSTAH, and HNP officials
urged him to suspend voting before violence spread to
"fragile areas."


3. (SBU) In the Artibonite, some voting centers in Verrettes,
Petite Riviere, and Dessalines were closed after unknown
perpetrators threw rocks and threatened some polling sites.
In the West department, some polling stations opened late and
shots were fired in the Martissant and Cite Soleil
neighborhoods of the capital. In an isolated incident, a
supporter of the Union party candidate was beaten by unknown
men while handing out hot meals from her vehicle; the alleged
attackers were later questioned and released. A campaign
worker alleged they were from Lespwa. Even in these three
departments, voting largely unfolded as planned. There were
isolated, unconfirmed reports of ballot stuffing in a small
number of polling stations. Few or none of the disturbances
appeared to be the work of Fanmi Lavalas partisans, whom many
had suspected would attempt to disrupt the voting. CEP
Director General Pierre-Louis Opont publicly praised Lavalas
for not hindering the elections despite the latter's
promotion of an elections boycott.


4. (U) President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Michele
Pierre-Louis each voted early in the afternoon at their
respective polling stations. Preval noted he returned early
from the Summit of the Americas to vote; he deflected
questions about the closure of polls in the Center, saying
that the CEP made its decision independently.


5. (SBU) Embassy's initial assessment is that Haiti's
electoral authority, aided by MINUSTAH's logistics and
planning and by bilateral donors' programs, ran a reasonably
proficient election from the technical standpoint. Despite
serious delays in hiring polling station personnel, most
appeared adequately trained and up to the job. The great
majority of polling stations visited by Embassy personnel
also had poll watchers from one or more political parties and
Haitian NGOs specializing in election monitoring. The CEP's
civic education campaign, as well as spirited media debates
among candidates in many departments, had raised voter
interest in the several weeks prior to the election. While

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Embassy cannot assess the degree to which the
disqualification of Fanmi Lavalas candidates depressed
turnout, there were other major contributing factors. The
doubling of the number of election centers (each of which is
divided into five to more than thirty polling places)
mandated by the election law passed last year led to
confusion among many voters as to where they should vote.
Limitations on most vehicular traffic, imposed as a security
precaution, meant that some voters stayed at home rather than
walking long distances to their voting center. Turnout in
purely legislative elections in recent years has not been
high. Embassy will report election results when they come in.
SANDERSON